Facebook 'has 5 times more TV interaction than Twitter'

A new report by social TV analysts Trendrr claims that Facebook has a far greater 'second screen' presence with TV viewers than Twitter.

'Second screen' activity refers to viewers who interact via a complementary device, such as a smartphone or tablet, whilst watching TV.

Trendrr's study only pulled Facebook data from a single week in May, but states that "the volume of Facebook user engagement relating to television programming was 5 times as large as all other social networks combined".

The data may be explained by the fact that Facebook's global audience of 1.1 billion users is far greater than that of Twitter, who claim 200 million regular users.

But the authors of the report go on to explain: "Live events during airtime, such as sporting events, also showed dramatically higher levels of activity over other social networks, something that may be surprising for some who view Facebook as a platform mostly for extended conversation."

Twitter has previously made concerted efforts to work with advertisers who want innovative ways to reach an engaged TV audience who may fast-forward or ignore on-screen ads during broadcast.

A new beta service on Twitter enables selected US advertisers to reach users who are tweeting about specific shows. The advertiser's message then appears as a Promoted Tweet.

Twitter claims: "The impact of using Twitter in combination with TV advertising is significantly greater than that of using TV advertising alone.

"Users that Twitter identified as being exposed [to an ad] on TV and then engaged with a Promoted Tweet demonstrate 95% stronger message association and 58% higher purchase intent compared to users identified as being exposed on TV alone."